Patristic Period Essay

Defined by the fathers, church fathers that is, the Patristic Period ran from 100-451 C.E. where church fathers established the theological foundation of the Christian faith. By the fourth century five patriarchates,centers for religious administration had been developed. Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople all were located in the East, leading to a dominance over the West with only Rome. As a result of the Patristic period being a formative period of the christian church many developments arose from the period (Vishnevskaya). One of the most famous developments of the Patristic period was the creation of the New Testament canon. The idea of Gnosticism was also a new idea brought to light during the patristic period. Also the Arian controversy arose and ended in a very well know creed, even though the background behind the creed is not as well known. The definition of …show more content…
The problem that this caused was the nature of the divinity of the Son. According to Arius if Jesus Christ was created by God, the Father, then he should be below the Father. Arius was concerned with the idea of the monad, or one God. By setting Jesus as an equal to God he believed that that would lead to a dyad, or the worshiping of two gods. His response was that Jesus was God’s first creation, and that since he was created he was below the Father but higher than his human form. Emperor Constantine disagreed with Arius and in 325 C.E. called together the Council of Nicea to refute the Arian thoughts. The Council of Nicea’s refute came in the form of a creed called the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed contains many examples of refute including: “true God from true God” meaning that whatever you believe of God you also must believe of the Son, “begotten, not made” meaning that Jesus defies time and space, and “consubstantial with the Father” meaning that the Father and the Son are of the